Wander Through 939 S. Broadway with Tom Green

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Tom Green became a famous figure in the US in 1999 when his TV show got picked up by MTV. These days he’s taking advantage of the internet to basically do whatever he feels like, and occasionally that includes wandering through buildings in Downtown. A video posted last week shows Tom wandering through 939 S. Broadway ), the textiles building just south of the former United Artists theatre.

939 South Broadway was built in 1921 by A.C. Blumenthal Company, and the entire structure was leased to Western Costume, which at the time supplied 99 percent of costumes for the motion-picture industry.

I’m not sure if it ended up being built this way, but the description for the building included this pretty odd feature:

Mr. Blumenthal stated that a costly elevator service will be provided, including a large freight elevator which will be used for the transportation of automobiles to various floors. By the new system a customer can drive his or her machine to any floor, alight, and the automobile can then be taken to the roof for parking.

Given that it’s a height-limit building, that’s quite the freight elevator.

Source: LA Times, July 25, 1923.